Good morning, everyone. Thank you for being here this morning. We spoke last night approximately 2 30 a. M. And good morning, everyone. Thank you for being here this morning. We spoke last night approximately 2 30 a. M. And provided an update of a highly dangerous and rapidly evolving situation with folks bent on destroying property with no regard for safety of minnesotans and certainly no desire to make a statement other than wanton destruction and chaos. I want to thank the minnesotans who abided by the curfew. I want to thank hour responders our responders who are out there protecting our cities. A highly evolved and tightly controlled group of folks bent on adapting their tactics to make it as difficult as possible to maintain that order. My mission has been clear to the folks in minnesota in conjunction with the mayor of minneapolis and the mayor of st. Paul protection of citizenry and property is hour top our top priority, and maintaining and restoring civil order on the streets. I think what is really important to recognize is the tactics and approach that we have taken have evolved and need to evolve the same way. With a sensitivity to the legitimate rage and anger that came after what the world witnessed in the murder of george floyd and was manifested in a very healthy gathering of community to memorialize that on tuesday night was still present to a certain degree on wednesday. By thursday, it was nearly gone. Last night is a mockery of pretending this is about George Floyds death or inequities or historical traumas to our communities of color because our communities of color and our indigenous communities were out front riding handinhand to fighting handinhand to save what took generations to build. Infrastructure and nonprofits that have served a struggling community were torn down and burned by people with no regard what into that. Lets be clear the situation in minneapolis is no longer in any way about the murder of george floyd. It is about attacking Civil Society, instilling fear and disrupting our great cities. With that being the case, as we ourcated last night, tactics, again, is to try to reduce loss of life, to do what we can to restore order. We mobilized the largest mobilization of National Guard that were in the field last night of over 700. We pulled in state patrol and state assets to augment minneapolis and st. Pauls force. And as i told people who are listening, this is not an infinite number of people we can pull. The Minnesota State patrol is a highly trained, highly organized force that when every single one of them is up and operating is at about 700. You cannot operate all the time on that. The same thing with the minnesota National Guard, and, of course, the cities. As you saw this expand across the United States, and you start to see, if it be domestic terrorism, ideological extremists to fan the group, or international destabilization of how our country works, those elements are present in all of this. I spoke this morning with the secretary of defense and with the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff extensively to update the situation, receive their situation report as they see it across the country, and to suggest courses of action going forward. In consultation with the mayors and the resources they have and just to be clear, as you witness this, if its new york or denver or louisville or las vegas, there is no mayor in america that has the resources to push back on an organized attempt to destabilize Civil Society with no regard for life or property. In consultation as a group and as we said this morning, im authorizing and talking to general jensen to fully mobilize the minnesota National Guard, an action that has never been taken in the 164year history of the minnesota National Guard. We will pull in assets as we have been doing, and for those minnesotans who are wondering where the fire trucks are, where the police are that are out there, the situation was so broad and the tactics so bent on causing destruction that every Single Person we had mobilized again, the largest in state history last evening was engaged in that. By this afternoon, hour hope is our hope is to exponentially have that force out there, to use all of the resources and in the state and partnerships of sister cities and counties to help us, and i have made initial calls and will be speaking with governors of adjacent states who will be providing Additional Support through their National Guards. The message is clear, minnesota. We had a tragedy monday night. We understand the work we need to do and the generational pain that went into what happened with george floyd and that murder, but at this point in time, nothing we do to address those inequities, nothing we do to provide justice to george floyd and his family that i spoke with last evening none of those things matter to any of these people who are out there firing upon National Guards, burning businesses of our communities, and making intent on disrupting any semblance of civil life. So, in partnership with the mayors and the team that is here, throughout the day today, there will be peaceful protests that were previously scheduled. They will be large, as anticipated. Today will be an expression of that grief, of the loss of george floyd. There will be legitimate exercising of First Amendment rights. Every Single Person in this room will put all these resources we are talking about to protect their right to do that, to protect their right to gather as community. I will continue to stress, because it seems a lifetime ago we are still in the middle of a pandemic and passed 1000 deaths yesterday. We still have hospitals on the verge of being overrun with covid19. The folks that are gathering out there and if you watched on tuesday and wednesday, social distancing masks. The masks last night were worn to disguise. They were not worn to try to do anything. They were there to cause confusion, but the rest of us need to maintain that. For minnesotans who are wondering and asking the legitimate question, the safety and concern everyone in this room was up all night. The nightmare of these people starting fires. At this point in time, it is nothing short of a blessing that we have not had someone killed and an innocent bystander in this. That situation can be expected to deteriorate further. As you will hear from commissioner harrington they are , adapting. They are receiving information together. They are being fed by professionals in this. Using professional tactics and urban warfare. Those types of things are happening with these people. Like i said, they are getting what they want. They are getting on tv, seeing the images. They have the governor of minnesota standing up here at 2 30 at night talking about how we are moving things around, and they are getting what they wish. Today, they are going to have an overwhelming force of safety, security, and peace that the citizens of minnesota and our surrounding neighbors are going to provide. They are going to see a coordination to the best of her our ability to make sure that this stops and it ends. That is going to happen and im speaking with governors across the country who are in the same situation, trading information. Many cities are where we were on wednesday night and expect to be where we were on thursday night, and that is a situation minnesotans, this is a challenging time. Our great cities of minneapolis and st. Paul are under assault by people who do not share hour values, who do not value the life and work that went into this, and certainly are not here to honor george floyd, and they need to see today that that line will stop and order needs to be restored. With that, i want to welcome up mayor jacob frey, the minneapolis mayor, and someone who from the very beginning saw this before any mayor in the country and requested National Guard support earlier than any mayor in the country, and now this situation is requesting the next step of full mobilization. Thank you, governor. The show of force tonight has got to be about safety, security, peace, and order. Our minneapolis residents are scared and rightfully so. Weve seen longterm, institutional businesses overridden. Weve seen Community Institutions set on fire. I want to be very, very clear the people that are doing this are not minneapolis residents. They are coming in largely from outside this city, from outside of the region to pray on everything we have built over the last several decades. The dynamic has changed over the last several days. If you look at tuesday, it was largely peaceful protests. The vast majority peaceful, the vast majority of people from our city with a small group of people looking to have intentional disturbance. Gradually, that shift was made, and we saw more and more people coming from outside the city. We saw more and more people looking to cause violence and violence in our communities, and i have to say it is not acceptable. If you are concerned, i get it. If you have family members or friends that are even considering protesting, this is no longer about protesting. This is no longer about verbal expression. This is about violence, and we need to make sure that stops. We are in the middle of a pandemic right now. We have two crises that are sandwiched on top of one another. In order to make sure we continue to have the necessary Community Institutions, we need to make sure that our businesses are protected, that they are safe, and that they are secure. To our minneapolis residents, we are with you. We will be mobilizing the Largest Force that has ever come forward in the state of Minnesota History to help. We understand you are concerned. We want to be there for you. Gov. Walz thank you, mayor. Mayor carter . Thank you mayor frey. Thank you. What we are experiencing right now is one of the most heartbreaking weeks in american history, certainly in Minnesota History. We woke up at the beginning of this week to, as we all know, a disgusting, disturbing video of mr. George floyd being wrongfully killed. He was unarmed. He was not aggressive. He begged for his life and called for his mom. Screamed, this man is dying. A 10 minuterse of video, we see the life squeezed out of mr. Floyd. Anger over his death is understandable. Sadness, pain, heartache, frustration is legitimate. We have in our community right now an enormous number of people of all ages, all races, all agree that who mr. Floyd should still be alive. We have in our community an enormous number of people of all ages, all races, all backgrounds, all neighborhoods who are looking to see not only one but all four of the officers involved in his death be fully held accountable. We have an enormous number of arele in our community that heartbroken by the fact that the name george floyd does not stand alone in history but that it joins a too long and too rapidly growing list of names of unarmed, unaggressive africanamerican men who lost their lives wrongfully at the hands of Law Enforcement. And the frustration that time and time again, we have seen no one held accountable. We have an enormous amount of legitimate frustration of people who ask when . How long will it take . People who ask how egregious does it have to be . People who ask how blatant, how welldocumented does it have to be for someone to be held accountable for George Floyds murder . That frustration, that pain is real and its legitimate. To all the people in our community who believe in what i just said, who wholeheartedly need the world to hear that mr. Mr. Floyd should be alive, that someone should be held accountable, and that we as a community, a culture, a society must do everything we can imagine to keep this from happening again, we stand with you. I stand with you. There are many, many ways for us to Work Together in a constructive manner that builds our communities, that empowers our communities, to speak up with a loud voice. The world is listening. There are opportunities for us to do that in a constructive manner. Unfortunately, there are also those among us who would seek to use this moment, who would seek to use his death as an excuse, as a cover to agitate for the destruction of those same communities that have been most traumatized by George Floyds death, those same communities that have been most traumatized by the dual crisis of a covid19 pandemic and an economic crisis we are facing right now. Those same communities are being retraumatized right now. As our blackowned barbershop, our immigrant owned restaurants, as our local, generational, familyowned businesses are damaged and destroyed night after night. This must stop. I know the governor, i know mayor frey, myself wholeheartedly support the right of people to protest, the right of free speech, for people to say what they believe about the world, to speak up and say to and say and participate in making this world a better place. That right to speak stops at destruction of lives, destruction of property, destruction of livelihood. Night, and last across our twin cities, a curfew went into effect. Because we had a relative stillness in st. Paul, we did not make an enormous number of arrests, but every Single Person we arrested last night im told was from out of state. What we are seeing right now is a group of people who are not from here. As i talk to my friends who have been in this movement a long time, who wake up in this movement every day, and i ask them what they see, feel, hear, to a person i hear them say, we dont know these folks. We dont know these folks who are agitating. We dont know these folks who are inciting violence. Those folks who are agitating and inciting are taking advantage of the pain, of the hurt, of the frustration, of the anger, of the very real and legitimate sadness that so many of our Community Members feel to advocate for the destruction of our community. I echo the governors statements, i echo the mayors statements in that our Police Officers and firefighters are facing something they have never faced before. That alone would be very, very difficult to address. One thing ive learned about the world, about minnesota, and certainly about st. Paul, is every time ugliness raises its head in our community, the beauty of community, that beautiful spirit that Paul Wellstone once spoke about when he said, we all do better when we all do better, arises. Across the twin cities yesterday, across st. Paul yesterday, we saw countless neighbors show up for each other. We saw people show up with a broom and a bucket, a rag to clean, and just Work Together. They were not cleaning their cousins store or their uncles store. They were just coming to help each other, to clean up our city. Over the last couple of months, thanks to the fact that we in minnesota have a governor who took strong action to protect people in the pandemic crisis, we showed that togetherness by staying home. We showed that togetherness by honoring the stayathome order the governor has executed, and those efforts resulted in saving lives in our communities right now, today, this week in minnesota, we must show that same sense of togetherness. We must show that same sense of unity. We must show that sense of community and cohesion as we stand forward to say, we will not accept the brutal killing of unarmed black men. We will not accept George Floyds death, and we will not accept the destruction of our communities, either. Those two things, those two values, those two goals are not in competition or conflict with one another. Actually, they are one and the same. Thank you very much. Thank you, mayor carter. Commissioner harrington. Im john harrington, commissioner of the department of Public Safety. The department of Public Safety was given the mission by the governor to restore order and to maintain and keep the peace. We have assembled the largest civil policing authority in the history of minnesota. Ive been in policing for 40 years, and there has never been a time when i have had as many officers, deputies, and state Law Enforcement officials come together for a single mission. We are working together under a unified command to make sure that we can be out there to keep the peace, but i will tell you that we have seen a change over the last couple of days. We have seen from the earliest demonstrations, which were Peaceful Demonstrations that were largely demonstrations where people were trying to express the horror and trauma of having georges life snuffed out to not seeing Peaceful Demonstrations, and im not seeing, frankly, any empathy or any heart for mr. Lloyd or for the communities that he loved and the communities he belonged to. Last night, we saw not only a change in the temperament and approach of what i would call rioters they were not demonstrating for a cause. They were not protesting injustice. They were simply bent on destruction of property, and they were bent on trying to hurt people, and they did not really care who they hurt in the interim. We had multiple shots fired in both cities coming out of the riotous group. We had officers and National Guardsmen and women shot at. We had improvised explosive devices used to injure state troopers and others. We saw them break into post offices and we saw them try to destroy not only public property, but repeatedly set fires to private property with absolutely no i mean this absolutely no sense that there were people who that was not just their shop, not just their business, but that was their home. Thats where their sweat and blood and life was based out of, and they burned it to the ground with no second thought. We also saw a shift in the numbers last night. As i said, we put together 2500 Public Safety folks between National Guard and cops and state troopers, everybody else. That is an enormous number of Law Enforcement people, and we were confronted with tens of thousands of rioters. Let me repeat that that little group that started out embedding themselves into george lloyds Memorial Service is no longer those groups. It is, in fact, the group throwing projectiles, throwing batteries, firing into crowds, and setting fires and attacking firefighters, ems, Law Enforcement, sheriffs department, and National Guardsmen as they seek to provide safety in our communities. We have watched these folks grow in brazenness, and we have watched them also grow in challenging approaches that we have had to adapt to. We have watched them take on efforts where literally, there are 5000 of them surrounding a building, trashing the building, and then when confronted, running back under the cover of darkness into residential areas. We have watched them try and destroy downtowns. Its hard to drive through one of our downtowns without seeing the plywood that is up, if it was a preventative measure or simply to patch the holes that they had punctured into the buildings that support and are the anchors of our downtown areas. We are adapting to their tactics. We have made more arrests virtually every day, and we have focused on the fact that as this is not a protest, where this is not a demonstration, that we will always and i repeat always respect everyones First Amendment rights, those rights stop at the end of a molotov cocktail thrown into an open business. Those rights stop at the point that you loot the liquor store in the neighborhood. Those rights stop when you loot the gas station, the little mom and pop gas station in the neighborhood. Minnesota Public Safety and minnesotas National Guard are gearing up. We are getting bigger, and we are changing our approach because this is intolerable, and we are coming to stop it. I dont want anyone to make any mistakes about that. We will make sure that those folks that come out today, that want to mourn mr. Floyds passing, that their rights are, in fact, protected. These rioters are, in fact, trampling on those rights by making it too dangerous for good people to speak their minds, and we cannot as a community, we cannot as minnesotans, we cannot as members of the twin cities community, tolerate that. So you can expect to see Law Enforcement, the National Guard, state, county, and local and lockstep tonight, preventing, responding, rescuing, and repelling attacks on our businesses, on our personal safety, and on the personal liberties of the twin cities area. At this time, i want to introduce general jensen of the minnesota National Guard. I dont think i could speak with any more passion than the 4 gentlemen that just spoke in front of me, so what i will do is give you a quick update on the last 48 hours and the in the minnesota National Guards participation in this operation. 24 hours ago, we had approximately 400 guardsmen, state active duty in support of the governors executive order. As mentioned by the governor yesterday, we reached a peak the National Guard had never been up at before over 700 soldiers and airmen mobilized to support the governors executive order. While it was the largest mobilization and, as commissioner harrington described, the largest Law Enforcement operation in minnesotas history, it was not enough. Early yesterday, we began mobilizing additional soldiers, and we expected, and we expect by noon to have 2500 soldiers and airmen mobilized and in support of the governors executive order. But that is not enough. The governor Just Announced the full mobilization of the minnesota National Guard for the First Time Since world war ii. What does that mean . It means we are all in. All in with the two mayors to my left, their citizens, their communities that they represent. We are all in to the two Law Enforcement professionals to my right, supporting them to ensure we bring stability and peace back to our two great cities. But even that is not enough. As governor walz just laid out, we had a conversation with the secretary of defense and chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. We are requesting National Level resources to come to the state to make key contributions to the operation commissioner harrington has laid out. To our two mayors and to our two Law Enforcement professionals, and to you, governor, the minnesota National Guard is all in. Thank you, governor. I dont intend on rehashing the ground covered by people who were already up here saying the important things they said, but i do stand here as chief of the Minnesota State patrol to say we have done something we have never done in the history of organization all the way back to in terms of the mobilization of 1929 state troopers across minnesota, that have come to the area to do whatever we can to get back to what we believe in as an organization and as the Minnesota State patrol. To reflect our core values of respect, integrity, courage, honor, and excellence. Thats who we are, and thats arewe believe minnesotans too. Our job is to get out there in of what we are confronted with right now, to stop the criminal behavior we have been seeing and to stop the criminal behavior we regretfully anticipate will happen tonight and into the near future. I have heard from many minnesotans that do not like what they see. They do not think what is going on represents who we are in minnesota. They want to help. We need your support, we need your prayers, and we need your thoughts as we work as hard as we possibly can to get minnesota out of this situation and stabilized so that we can move forward and make the state what we believe it should be, one that is safe for every Single Person who lives or visits this wonderful state. Thank you, colonel. I think you have to assess what is going on on the ground. I will certainly not make light of the seriousness of where we are at. For those of you wondering if we were timid or something happened, i think you need to understand, even going into last night, this was the Largest Force and exhausted much of what we had going into that. The professionalism and the tactics were by the book. One of the things is when you are a force of good in law and order, you play by the rules. When you are bent on destruction and harm and chaos, you dont have to do that, and it makes it very difficult. I think it is important to note, too, that this call and the call up of the guard and the attempt to do this is only going to make it more difficult tonight. The people listening do not see this as a deterrent. They are not searching their soul. They are not deciding this was destructive and stupid, what they did. This is the challenge they were looking for. The call will go out to join, and the call will be there to try to break the back of Civil Society and the people putting it forward. Minnesotans, im not trying to make this any lighter. This is going to be very difficult. To set expectations, they will slip away, and they will start fires. They will do that. No matter how many people we have on the ground with where we were at. Our goal is to decimate that force as quickly as possible, to protect life, property, and restore that order, but they will bring everything they have to this. I think it is very clear, and i will make that statement, they will use social media and whatever they need to do. Our expectation is to have a curfew in place. Our expectation is to restore order. It will be a dangerous situation tonight. We will do everything in our power to restore that order that minnesotans expect, that minnesotans demand, but as each of these folks said, it will take all of us. I am grateful to our neighbors, our fellow americans who are helping and who are sending prayers and thoughts to the fellow governors. I am grateful to the president and the administration for continuing to be on the line and offer and provide assistance when needed, and i am most grateful to minnesotans. We built this state. We built the northstar. Everything we believe in, these people are trying to destroy. If you are on the streets tonight, it is very clear you are not with us. You do not share our values. We will use the full strength of goodness and righteousness to make sure this ends. With that, i am glad to answer questions along with the folks up here. Peter . Reporter [indiscernible] gov. Walz i will let these folks go its a good question. Peters question is about how do we know this. I want to be clear, as i said earlier in the week, this is not about saying it is not us, but its everybody from everywhere else. We understand the catalyst for this was minnesotans and minnesotans inability to deal with inequality, inequities, and quite honestly, the racism that has persisted. I am not denying that. But where we are at right now, to ask thegoing media to help us with this, we are going to start releasing who some of these people are, and they will be able to start tracing that history of where they are at and what theyre doing on the dark web and how they are organizing. I think our best estimate i heard is about 20 is what we think are minnesotans and about 80 are outside. Im not trying to deflect in any way. I am not trying to say there are not minnesotans amongst the group. We know we have folks that may be out there, too, but the vast majority that are out there, but i think the difference is, and this is where mayor carter and mayor frey spoke eloquently, our heart and solidarity are with folks who understand what happened monday night to george floyd. We must see justice and see it fixed, but these folks are not them. That is a good question and we will get more data. Peter, do you want to follow up on that . Reporter who are these people, and what is happening in terms of you going after them . Gov. Walz you want to talk about that . As we have begun making arrests, we have begun analyzing the data of who we have arrested and begun actually doing what you would think is actually similar to covid. It is contact tracing. Who are they associated with . What platforms are they advocating for . We have seen things like white supremacist organizers who have posted things on platforms about coming to minnesota. We are checking to see, the folks that we have made arrests on and we have information, are they connected to those platforms . We have seen flyers about protests where folks talk about they are going to get their loot on tonight. We are checking to see if they are part of a criminal organization, and if so, what is that organization . How are they organized . We have been working with our state, county, local, and federal partners to start looking at issues around is this organized crime . Is this an organized cell of terror . Wheres the linkage . We are in the process of building that information network, building that intel effort so we can link these folks together, figuring out the organizations that have created this, and understand how we go after them legally. That is absolutely part and parcel of our mission. We are Public Safety, and we recognize there are legal issues involved, but we are not going to tolerate the violence and destruction that they are using as a cover for the other illegal activity. Said you going to release names . Are you going to release information . I expect we will be able to release the names of some of the folks that have been arrested, and some of the Background Information we have pulled together, and we hope to be able to do that today. Putting thatthink in the media, too, is to help on that. And the frustration we feel about who are they, why do they do this, and it is one of the things i have asked to get this out, clearly. Next question, please. Reporter can you talk more about your conversation with the secretary this morning and what you are asking for in terms of federal military assistance. Gov. Walz this is the second conversation in 24 hours. I was joined on the call by hour our leadership team, general jensen being the lead with military affairs. We are looking at the resources they have. If there is signal intelligence we can get from them, are there things that can provide us . And talking about the mechanisms we use with the National Guard. I think it is important again to think about the uniqueness of our nation and protecting Civil Liberties is to make sure civilian control of the military and especially in the United States is carried out by civilians, the National Guard. This goes back to the insurrection act. I was the lead author in 2007, so i understand clearly the militarization of a civilian population is a deep concern. That is why we are accessing and they are helping us access these assets through the National Guard and surrounding states. They also were able to provide their intelligence support to be able to see who these operators are. For minnesotans, as you saw this, and it has been 48 hours playing out, just thinking about this, the wars we fought to protect our nation, the war on terrorism and all that over the last 72 hours, these people have brought more destruction and more terror to minnesota than anyone in our history. When you see them out there wearing a baseball hat and a tshirt and walking down, that is not who they are. That is not who this is. I think its very clear to change your mindset and we are changing ours, and keep in mind that that peaceful protest has morphed into something very different. Yes . Reporter [indiscernible] talking about how youre changing tactics and the amount of Law Enforcement we have here. Yet, we did not see Law Enforcement until well after 11 00. Gov. Walz yes, and it is a question i brought. It was sheer numbers. There were more Law Enforcement, and they were actively engaged like in no time in their history. One of the things about a curfew is much like i continue to say, Civil Society is not just maintained by laws and the threat of punishment but maintained by the social compact that we share the same values. The curfew gives us a Legal Authority to make the arrest of people out there, to start separating that. I would make clear to people tonight that i believe, and setting expectations on this, what you have seen in previous nights i think will be dwarfed by what they do tonight. If you are an innocent bystander going out there tonight, you will be swept up in this. We will do our best, but thinking about the logistics of arresting someone who wants to break the law. Talking about the tactics they use, you have someone with a , they arecktail surrounding folks, cutting us off, trying to escalate a situation where deadly force is used and chaos ensues. The question about are you out there . Have you put enough on just to be clear, the mayor of minneapolis requested National Guard support earlier than anyone in the country. National guard was mobilized at a level unseen in Minnesota History by wednesday morning. Forces on the ground last night were dwarfing anything weve seen from riots going back in Minnesota History. You are seeing sheer numbers of where protesters are at and that is our job and pulling in the resources that we are doing today. Just to be clear, those who say federalize and bring them in, you are talking about 400 people under that scenario and also fundamentally changing how we go about policing and striking that balance. If it were the case, throw everything at this, send out 100,000 people and go out and arrest every one of these people, that is the situation you would see on the street, so it has to be tactical. It has to be with support. We have to get help from the public making sure if you are not involved in this and, what i would ask today is, if you know where these people are sleeping today, let us know and we will execute warrants. Let us know if someone was there to do this. If you know someone was down there protesting, help us. Call that in. Tell us who they were. They are not from minneapolis, but they are staying down here, doing this, coming in. Yes . Reporter [indiscernible] attempt to go about enforcing the curfew, putting Law Enforcement in harms way . Gov. Walz i will say this for the commissioner before he comes up here. This is one, again, i think all of us being as transparent as possible, im speaking to minnesotans now about articulating a plan. Some of this will be the tactics they use. If i tell you and he tells you, they will adapt. We changed in two nights, they changed with us. I will let john talk about the number of arrests and some of the basic techniques you are seeing. Clicks on the st. Paul side on the st. Paul side and these are preliminary numbers we had about 20 arrests made on the st. Paul side. Over half of those were for burglary. If you think about the Grocery Stores and walgreens and all the Liquor Stores and pharmacies that have been broken into, as you look at all the plywood up and about. They were significant numbers for burglary. And then there was about 1 3 of that total was for curfew violations in addition to that. On the minneapolis side, i believe there was once again between 15 to 20 there. Once again, much of that was for curfew violations and or destruction of property, so thats the numbers we have so far. We recognize that is only essentially st. Paul and minneapolis. We need to get county booking numbers, and we recognize that as there were firebombings done throughout the metro area, that we will have to tap into washington and dakota because we understand they also had crimes committed in their jurisdictions. Reporter [indiscernible] are you telling legitimate protesters to not help provide cover . I missed the second part of your question there. Are you telling folks in your city that they are providing cover for this activity by being out after curfew . Yes, by being out tonight, you are most definitely helping those who seek to wrong hour our city. Let me be clear about this curfew. The people in our city, the residents of minneapolis, they are not abiding by the curfew because they dont want to get arrested. They are abiding by the curfew because they understand that it is the right thing to do for our city. Londoners during world war i and world war ii did not turn off their lights because the government told them to. They turned off the lights because they recognized it was the right thing to do for their city and country, and thats exactly the same thing as to what we are seeing. Let me be clear about the numbers we have seen. Early on, there were so many questions about why dont just arrest our way out of this, on wednesday and thursday, and why dont we have an officer placed at each and every business . If we were to place an officer at all of the businesses we were seeing get attacked and looted, it would be one officer facing in some instances 100 people coming in. If they were to arrest one, the other 99 walk right by. We certainly do not want to incite additional violence by triggering some sort of force, so this became a very difficult situation that was not about planning or strategy but about mass. What about math. I want to be very clear we did not have the numbers early on. This was about math. On wednesday afternoon, i called the governor as soon as i heard from our chief and requested assistance from the National Guard. We are very appreciative to have those resources. We definitely need the numbers because we cannot do it alone, and now that we do have a concerted and unified contingent right now, so tonight, yes, most definitely abide by the curfew. We will need everybody complying. Thank you. I think we have all made the distinction that there are people who are seeking to peacefully protest, and there are other people who are agitators who are seeking to agitate and incite violence. The problem we are hearing from a lot of our friends who have been in the movement in minnesota for a very long time is that you have somebody who will go forward and break a window or try to start a fire or something, and as the governor mentioned, then go run back behind the people trying to peacefully protest and use them essentially as human shields. I hear people saying the curfew did not work to stop the incidents that happened last night. To be clear, i dont think theres an expectation that people who are here from out of town to incite violence are going to say, oh, shoot, we cant know out there because the mayor implemented an 8 00 curfew. What that is designed to do is separate those wellmeaning Community Members who are heartbroken, who are feeling legitimate anger and sadness, and ask them, as the mayor just said, to stay home, to stay out of that, so we can separate who are the people in our community who are hurting, who need to be able to peacefully express their First Amendment rights from who are the people in our community looking to break a window or start a fire or create destruction in our communities. I would echo exactly what the mayor just said. Just by virtue of being out in that space, by virtue of being part of a crowd that the people who hope to destroy our communities would hide in, that, yes, would be aiding those who are attempting to destroy our communities. That is the purpose of the curfew. Gov. Walz before we go one second, please. We will gather at noon with civil rights leaders, members of this movement, folks who understand this clearly, and have them speak to you as well about this very question. Im sorry. Please go ahead. Reporter a followup question. When you have the full mobilization, how many National Guard troops are you willing to invest . How many have you asked for . This might be a distinction between when you are in the guard and ready to deploy. We have approximately 13,200 minnesota guardsman. All are not qualified to be deployed because they have not completed basic training or military operational skill training, but when the governor tasked me this morning with full mobilization, the expectation is that every soldier and airmen, regardless of military job, is available for this operation. At this time, i dont have a number to give you. Top end, as i mentioned, 13,200. The bottom end is where we are right now, 2400. It will be between those numbers as we work through this. Thank you. Reporter [indiscernible] gov. Walz yes, that was going back to an early question. The question of the president offering that. They put their 82nd airborne on readiness. I spoke to the president himself two days ago. I have spoken twice with secretary esper and joint chiefs of staff millie along with the guidance of general jensen about what that would look like. As i said earlier, the resources they will provide us in material resources, there is a mechanism with the National Guard, which we are relying on, which is quicker and better and easier to do, which is to rely on state partners around us. Federal troops, again, not from the community, and i think for people to think about this, they are not talking about mobilizing the entire United States army, we are talking in the neighborhood of several hundred. We can get more troops quicker than that by doing this, but that is an option that is out there. At this time, minnesotans, we will be back here and bring faith leaders to talk about it. We have planned demonstrations today, true demonstrations, true expressions of grief, true calls to heal our community. We will be out there and the folks that are here will be out there to support that and protect that and honor that right, but we are asking those people, as soon as those are done, to disburse, to be out of the area, and to not do what the mayors both clearly and eloquently, and i would associate myself with them if you are out after 8 00, you are helping make it easier for these folks and you are giving them the cover they want. Minnesotans this is an , unprecedented time we are in. To my fellow governors experiencing this and the mayors, we stand with you as americans who value decency, who value community, who value the rule of law, and we stand together. This is an opportunity for our nation to truly become united about this. Who meant those folks to bring us harm and to become stronger. We will be back with you shortly. Thank you, mayor. Conversations]
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